Late-night hosts on Trump's disastrous press conference: 'We elected a mess'

Extract from The Guardian

Comics, including Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, dissect the president’s first solo presser, filled with ‘bizarre paranoia’

‘You’re all fake news’: comedians mock Trump’s press conference

Guardian staff

Saturday 18 February 2017 03.11 AEDT 

Late-night hosts took apart Donald Trump’s unhinged first solo press conference as president, claiming it was “batshit crazy”.
On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah talked about the previous plan for that night’s episode being trashed after “Hurricane Trump” arrived and gave a rambling and bizarre presser.
He spoke about his continued use of the falsehood about his electoral college win being the biggest since Ronald Reagan.

“Trump’s been repeating this lie since election day,” he said. “If you can’t trust your president to get the right information on a Google-able fact then can you really trust him with the harder stuff, which, by the way, is everything else the president of the United States has to deal with.”
He also referred to Trump’s obsession with getting friendly questions and responding childishly when given anything tougher.

“You have a president of a democracy who thinks press is only valid when they ask him easy questions, questions that he likes,” he said. “In fact, in his mind, he deserves it.”
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert was similarly taken aback by how strange his behavior was and questioned whether a solo press conference was a good idea.

“This was just him by himself,” he said. “Evidently he didn’t even bring his meds with him.”
He talked about Trump’s inability to accept responsibility after he claimed that the government he inherited was a mess. “No, you inherited a fortune – we elected a mess,” Colbert said.
He also played a clip of Trump’s electoral college falsehood being ripped apart by a journalist who gave him the real fact. Trump responded by saying that was the information he was given.
“How presidential,” he said. “It really reminds me of Harry Truman, who so famously said: ‘Look, I don’t know where it’s supposed to stop. I was given that buck.’”

He also joked about Trump’s suggestion that April Ryan, a journalist of color, should help him set up a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, saying that it could be arranged at “your next meeting of the black club” and that “all black people know each other and control each other’s schedules”.
He finally compared it to a “dictator giving a press conference”.
On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the ex-SNL comic called the conference “batshit crazy”, describing an afternoon of “bizarre paranoia”, and also looked back on Trump’s previous pressers with uncomfortable world leaders.

“Being a world leader sitting with Trump right now is like being a woman on a date with a guy and then his wife shows up screaming: ‘Your kids want to know where you are!’” he said.
He brought up Trump’s Florida rally that is set to take place this weekend, with many calling it the start of his 2020 push.
“We are not ready for another campaign,” he said. “People from the last campaign are still wandering around in the woods. You’re like somebody who wants a birthday month. Your birthday is over, get to work.”
He talked about Trump’s response to recent moves made by the Russian government, calling them “not good”, to which Meyers responded: “We’re talking about Russian military aggression, not a turkey sandwich at the deli.”
He also brought up Trump’s suggestion that a black journalist should set up a meeting with the CBC. “It’s racist to assume all black people know each other,” he said. “You don’t know all orange people. Hey Donald, could you set up a meeting with Snooki and the Lorax?”
On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon came on dressed as Trump, saying: “You’re all fake news, I hate you all very much and thank you for being here.”

He joked: “We’ve made so much progress. In fact, if you ask any American, they’ll say that I’ve managed to make the last four weeks feel like four years.”
He also riffed on Trump’s blame-shifting. “We inherited a mess, such a mess,” he said. “Not even a giant Roomba could clean it up, which we are developing with Elon Musk. It’s top secret, confidential and I’m about to leak it in the next five minutes.”
After Andrew Puzder withdrew his name for secretary of labor, Fallon said: “We just named our new secretary of labor: Beyoncé. Who knows more about going into labor than someone carrying twins?”